This week’s theme
Words made with combining forms

This week’s words
theomachy
kleptocrat
thanatophobia
euryphagous

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(yoo-RIF-uh-guhs)

MEANING:

adjective: Eating a wide variety of foods.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek eury- (wide) + -phagous (feeding on). Earliest documented use: 1926.

NOTES:

If your menu ranges from pizza to pho, from injera to ice cream, you might just be euryphagous. The opposite is stenophagous (restricted diet: my cat only eats one brand of kibble). Note that euryphagous doesn’t necessarily mean omnivorous. A euryphagous eater can dine from A to Z, from asparagus to zucchini, or aardvark to zebra (depending on their dietary ethics).

USAGE:

“Yellow-rumped warblers are euryphagous. They eat insects in summer. But when the insects disappear in fall, the birds switch to berries and seeds -- and get along quite well.”
Jerry Sullivan; Field & Street; Chicago Reader; Nov 24, 1988.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: